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Review: Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins

Note: This is a re-post of my original Mystery Begins review from 2009.

What brings best friends together? For Daphne, Velma, Fred, Shaggy and Shaggy’s spunky pup Scooby-Doo, it’s a mystery! The feature-length live-action Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins original movie takes you back to when four teenage sleuths (plus one dog detective) first met. Unjustly accused of staging a spooky practical joke complete with ghosts, the kids are suspended from Coolsville High. To clear their names, they team to solve the supernatural mystery…and head straight into nonstop laughs and adventure. Special fun, special friends and extra-special effects make this “how-it-all-began” story – from boy-meets-dog to the first trip in the Mystery Machine and more – a doggone great time!

When I heard they were making a third live action Scooby Doo movie, and that it was going to be Direct To DVD, I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous. Usually Direct To DVD sequels/prequels never turn out good, but thankfully I was proven wrong here. What we got here is a nice retelling of Mystery Inc’s orgins that captures the spirt of the original cartoon.

The casting is pretty good. The film stars a cast of unknowns, which works to the movie’s advantage. Yeah, Fred isn’t blonde and Nick Palatas is not quite as good as Mathew Lillard, but everyone fits their roles quite nicely. Long time Scooby voice actor Frank Welker also provides the voice of Scooby here.

The special effects are pretty decent too. CGI Scooby looks more like his cartoon self than in the previous movies.

The only issues I had with the Mystery Begins were continuty err0rs{like the gang encountering real ghosts though they don’t encounter them untill much later|. It’s being called a prequel, but the movie feels like a reboot than anything else. But this doesn’t detract from the movie.

Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins offers a nice orgins story for Scooby and the gang and a decent plot. This is highly reccmmened for fans of Scooby Doo and for anyone who liked the first two movies. 4/5